This evening went up to Monkwick Farm with Mr. Craig on the Farm Survey. I remember going there when the Sages were there, about 25 years ago. Mr. Lochore tells me that the little island in the pond E. of the house contains quantities of brick rubble and small thick bricks. It occurs to me that this may be an early moated house site, although not so marked on any maps. The present house is partly 16th century, I imagine. Not long ago some bombs fell in and near the pond, without doing any damage at all.
Cold and stormy all day.
A survey of this site by Colchester Archaeological Trust, undertaken in 2000, agrees with EJR's archaeological assessment of the site:
'The development [Thomas Lord Audley School] is located on the site of Monkwick Farm, a moated grange (complete with fishponds) of St John’s Abbey, Colchester. After the Dissolution of 1547 it came into the possession of Sir Francis Jobson, who apparently rebuilt the house and enclosed a park there. The property was badly damaged during the Civil War in 1648, and then restored. Becoming increasingly dilapidated, it continued in existence as a farmhouse until its demolition in 1963, in preparation for the construction of a school. The fishponds had been drained in 1920.'
(Colchester Archaeological Trust Report, 2000, p.4)
Some wartime memories of Monkwick Farm can be viewed on the Monkwick Residents Association website.
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